Bill C-43 (Historical)

Faster Removal of Foreign Criminals Act

An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act

This enactment amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to limit the review mechanisms for certain foreign nationals and permanent residents who are inadmissible on such grounds as serious criminality. It also amends the Act to provide for the denial of temporary resident status to foreign nationals based on public policy considerations and provides for the entry into Canada of certain foreign nationals, including family members, who would otherwise be inadmissible. Finally, this enactment provides for the mandatory imposition of minimum conditions on permanent residents or foreign nationals who are the subject of a report on inadmissibility on grounds of security that is referred to the Immigration Division or a removal order for inadmissibility on grounds of security or who, on grounds of security, are named in a certificate that is referred to the Federal Court.

Motions in amendment

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, getting policy right in Parliament is not always easy and when we pick an arbitrary number to determine whether individuals are serious criminals is always a question of subjectivity.

In Canadian law, the general historical rule for determining whether something is a serious offence is a sentence of two years or more. If it is a sentence of two years or more, they do federal time; if it is two years or less, they do provincial time. We recognize that there are different levels of services offered, based on which side the sentence is on.

I am curious about the use of the term “serious foreign criminals” for people who get a sentence of six or seven months. Nobody in this House would ever say that a criminal sentence is not serious. Anytime a person is going to prison, obviously that is something that is worthy of sanction. However, in terms of taking permanent residents and deporting them from a country they may have lived in for 20 or 30 years, based on getting a sentence of seven or eight months, is something that is worthy of debate.

Does my hon. colleague have any comment on whether he thinks that moving serious criminality from two years to six months, or keeping six months, is an appropriate demarcation that would result in such consequences like deportation from the country in which someone may have grown up?

[James Rajotte, Conservative, Edmonton—Leduc, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is obviously a legitimate debate. In my view, the six-month penal sentence is an appropriate time period.

Going back to what the minister said earlier in debate, these are people who are actually convicted of a serious crime. These are people who go through the Canadian legal system, have the presumption of innocence and proceed through the legal system, as other Canadians would, and are convicted at the end of that. The six-month demarcation, in my view, is an appropriate time limit to establish. Beyond that is a serious penal offence that would require the measures that are proposed in this piece of legislation.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, earlier today I posed a question to the minister, and now I have the quote and I wonder if the member might provide a comment. It is in regard to an earlier question. The minister is here and maybe he could also have one of the other members provide comment on it at a later time.

In the committee it was stated:

Using a false or fraudulent document is an offence under section 368 of the Criminal Code carrying a maximum potential penalty of 10 years. A 20-year-old permanent resident who is convicted of using fake identification to get into a bar while visiting in the United States is inadmissible under IRPA for a foreign conviction. It doesn't matter that the U.S. court punished him only with a $200 fine. IRPA section 36(1)(b) does not require any particular sentence, only a foreign conviction.

This would then apply to the story that I made reference to for the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism. Is this particular member prepared to say that this particular statement is wrong?

[James Rajotte, Conservative, Edmonton—Leduc, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I know the minister and others will want to address the member opposite's question in substance as well.

With respect to this issue, however, I refer back to the point that someone has to be convicted of an offence in Canada and that conviction has to exceed the six-month demarcation. That is the standard that would be used in this legislation, only to the extent that it would affect the appeal process beyond that. So they have gone through the legal system in Canada and I believe that six-month demarcation period would be sufficient for the measures that are in this legislation, which then would restrict the appeal process beyond that.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I hope I can prevail on my hon. colleague to help me get to the bottom of an earlier answer that I got from the parliamentary secretary.

I think in error the parliamentary secretary misread clause 8 and thought it was a regulatory empowerment clause, which it is not. I trained as a lawyer and know how to do legislative drafting. Clause 8 revises section 22 of the act to give the minister discretion. It is not an empowerment section; it has nothing to do with regulation making.

I wonder if the hon. member for Edmonton—Leduc would agree with me that section 22 stands on its own. It is not about setting out regulations for the rest of the bill. It is a stand-alone section that gives the minister the discretion to refuse temporary residence if the minister is of the opinion that it is justified by public policy considerations.

[James Rajotte, Conservative, Edmonton—Leduc, AB]

Mr. Speaker, with respect to discretion, the minister pointed out in response to an earlier question by a member that the minister currently has positive discretion and, therefore, the question is why the minister should not exercise negative discretion.

Also, there are public policy criteria, which I know the member opposite will know well, that the minister would use, if this legislation passes, in applying that negative discretion. I reviewed the criteria with the minister directly and I think those criteria are sufficient for guiding this minister or any future minister with respect to the use of that negative discretion.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-43. Since I am a member of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, I was there to hear for myself what the witnesses and experts had to say about the problems inherent in this bill.

Some of the measures in this bill are at odds with Canada's international obligations. These measures favour what could be described as the exile of criminals who have permanent resident status, rather than opting for a responsible position towards criminals for the safety of all citizens. Furthermore, certain measures in this bill attack the very foundation of our justice system, which includes a fair trial and the right to appeal. Other measures cast such a wide net that this bill will undoubtedly cover situations that will penalize innocent people, just so the Conservative government can create the illusion of security.

The Conservatives' rhetoric and the measures they are proposing do not promote the principles of justice, prevention and rehabilitation—all important Canadian values that truly guarantee stable and lasting security.

This bill was unfortunately not designed to improve the immigration system, but instead was designed as a smokescreen. All of the Conservatives' material outlining why this bill is needed, including the information on the department's website, is based on five exceptions. The five reasons on the Citizenship and Immigration website for taking away the right to appeal in the removal of foreign criminals are all individual cases. These reasons are not based on sound research and statistics.

Public policy should not be based on a few examples. In the House we pass legislation that is supposed to benefit all Canadians, as well as all people living in Canada.

In addition, in the cases raised by the Conservatives, the act was not the problem: no legislative amendments were needed. The problem was in how the act was enforced and in particular the lack of resources. The real problem is that the government insists on amending legislation without ensuring that peace officers and public servants have the tools to enforce it.

The Conservatives claim that they want to change things with this bill. They should be in contact with the different departments to ensure that the changes will be effective in practice, and they should provide the departments with the proper resources. The Conservatives are trying to ignore all that with this amendment to the act, which is nothing more than smoke and mirrors.

The Conservatives' cuts and underfunding of public safety are affecting our country's security. I will give two examples of recent cuts. By 2015, huge cuts will have been made to public safety, to the tune of $687.9 million. The Canada Border Services Agency, the Correctional Service of Canada and the RCMP will bear the brunt of those cuts.

Furthermore, there is no money to meet the needs of front-line police officers. The federal government is refusing to renew funding for the Police Officers Recruitment Fund, which was created in 2008. The government supported the fund with $400 million over five years so that the provinces could recruit more front-line police officers. This is having a direct impact on our country's security.

Here is an example of the strange and unfortunate decisions that the minister is making: one of the changes proposed in this bill gives the minister the discretionary power to deny access to foreign nationals for public policy considerations.

This seems a bit political to me and, unfortunately, it is no way to govern for everyone. Even without these exceptional powers, the minister is abusing his authority for partisan reasons. In 2009, for example, even without the powers that the minister is seeking in the bill, the minister denied a British MP for inappropriate reasons.

The Federal Court recognized that the minister made this decision for political reasons. Is it reasonable for him to now ask us to grant him even more power to make such decisions?

The committee proposed nine reasonable amendments. One of them was to include guidelines for ministerial decisions in the bill. It is not surprising that the Conservatives voted against this amendment to include guidelines in the bill. What is really surprising is that the witness who suggested these guidelines to the committee was the minister himself. That is a complete turnaround. It means that this change could potentially occur without Parliament having the right to consider public interest guidelines. One has to wonder about such a situation.

In committee, the minister recognized that the powers granted to him by this bill were excessive unless meaningful criteria were put in place to keep those powers in check. That is why he presented these criteria. Of course, they were reasonable. However, it is not every day that changes are made to determining criteria, such as the risk that a group represents. This is a point that Parliament could have examined but that the minister did not want to include in the bill.

I would like to remind members of a great quote by Benjamin Parker: “With great power comes great responsibility.” The Conservatives do not seem to understand this conventional wisdom, whether we are talking about orange juice, helicopter rides, the use of ministerial websites to announce partisan business or even the introduction of good public policies, which rarely happens these days. The Conservatives are not governing in a way that includes everyone.

When even a Conservative minister's suggestion is rejected solely because it was proposed by the NDP, we see that we are truly dealing with a government that is wilfully blind. It is very strange. The Conservatives are not serious politicians who are truly seeking to improve the bill. As parliamentarians, it is very disappointing for us to be unable to work with them.

The amendments we proposed were well thought out, considered and pertinent. They were based on the evidence given by experts who appeared before the committee. We tried to amend the bill to ensure that it could be implemented effectively, in keeping with the goal of enhancing security and with Canadian law and our values of justice. That seems to have been forgotten in this bill.

In response to an unacceptable amendment of the law, we proposed, for example, an amendment so that people of good faith who make a minor mistake in their application are not treated like dangerous criminals or barred from entering Canada for five years just because of a simple typo in their name or because they failed to list a job they held for a month at the age of 18. Those are the kinds of mistakes that can be made and that will prevent the person from entering Canada for five years. The Conservatives also rejected this amendment without any justification.

The bill reinforces punitive measures without really improving the immigration system or the safety of Canadians, and at the same time attacks our rights and Canadian values. It is truly important to remember that the NDP would like to work with the other parties to ensure the safety of Canadians by taking swift and effective action when non-citizens commit serious crimes. Unfortunately, our offer to collaborate was refused, and I am very disappointed. Consequently, I will not be supporting the bill.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to welcome you and everyone else back. This is my first time speaking in this venerable place this year of 2013.

I have a question for her. We often hear, where I am from in Davenport and in Toronto, parents concerned about some of the measures contained in the bill, because of the fact that sometimes young people make the wrong choices and get into a little trouble. Some of these immigrant parents are concerned that because of measures contained in the bill that their youth are at risk of falling within the confines and ultimately being sent back to their home country. This is will create further problems for families. It does not seem like the right way to go about this kind of approach.

Could my colleague speak to the issue of young people and the concerns that have been raised?

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Davenport reminded me that this is the first time I have stood in the House this year. Happy new year to everybody. I am very glad to be back.

We heard in committee that there were many people who came to Canada as small children a couple months old or a year old. The only country they know is Canada. They are, for all intents and purposes, Canadians, but have not necessarily become citizens yet.

That is very scary for a person who has grown up in Canada and who may fall into the wrong crowd or make a few mistakes, which is completely normal. If these people have been raised by Canadian society, it is our responsibility to understand that they are not non-Canadians or individuals who are foreigners who we can just deport because they do not have their citizenship yet.

We have to take responsibility for the fact that these people, for all intents and purposes, are Canadian.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Minister of Citizenship]

Mr. Speaker, here we go. The NDP has been claiming all along that it knows the current system for removal of foreign criminals is too slow and should be streamlined, but it never supports any specific measure to do so.

Now we have an NDP member saying that foreign nationals who have grown up in Canada should not be subject to deportation if they commit a serious crime. Not only does the NDP oppose our measures to streamline the deportation of convicted serious foreign criminals, it is actually in favour of making it even more difficult or in fact barring the removal from Canada of convicted serious foreign criminals.

The member for Vancouver Kingsway had suggested that under law a serious crime was defined as one that lead to a penal sentence of two years or more. I would point that member and the member for Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel to section 64(2) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act that says, “For the purpose of subsection (1), serious criminality must be with respect to a crime that was punished in Canada by a term of imprisonment of at least six months”.

I just want to clarify. Is the member suggesting that foreign nationals who have been convicted of a serious criminal offence, as defined by the immigration act, should not be deported from Canada?

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we all agree that non-citizens who commit serious crimes in Canada should be dealt with quickly and efficiently.

However, we are very concerned that the bill is far too stretching. Did the minister just say “six months”? Did he just admit to that? I do not really consider that serious criminality. For instance, for people who have grown up in Canada and commit crimes that puts them in prison for six months, we need to accept that this is far overreaching and the government has gone too far with its bill this time.

Frankly, we made very reasonable amendments at committee that would have curbed the excessive power and the overreach and would have ensured that we followed judicial process in the country and they were rejected. Had these very reasonable amendments been accepted, we would have been able to support the bill through the House to ensure that Canadians were safer.

Unfortunately, the Conservatives refused to work with the opposition. Therefore, we cannot support the bill.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of Bill C-43, the faster removal of foreign criminals act. I do not support the opposition's amendments and do not support the NDP and the Liberals attempt to try to prevent this important legislation from becoming law. I would like to thank the minister for his courage and conviction in ensuring that our immigration policy never puts Canadians at risk.

However, members do not have to take it from me why the bill is necessary. Countless organizations and experts support Bill C-43 and I know Canadians will as well.

I would like to take this opportunity to inform all members of the House of the important testimony we heard from Mr. Tom Stamatakis, president of the Canadian Police Association, in hopes that the NDP and Liberals will listen to the experts, to our law enforcement officials, and stop playing games with the safety and security of Canadians and support the faster removal of foreign criminals act.

Mr. Stamatakis summed up the Canadian Police Association support for Bill C-43 when he stated:

Let me be absolutely clear. Canada as a nation is a stronger country because of immigrants who come here to enrich our communities through a shared culture. Police services across Canada, from Vancouver where I serve as a police constable to Halifax and all points in between, count among our members a number of first and second generation immigrants who serve their adopted country with honour and pride every day, and I'm one of them.

Unfortunately, there are those that come to Canada and choose not to respect and follow our laws. In fact, I was surprised to note, in preparing for my appearance today, that since 2007, according to the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, there have been an average of 900 appeals of deportation orders filed per year by serious criminals, over 4,000 in total. Surely, we can agree that our communities would be safer, and our police would be helped by streamlining this process in removing these security concerns as quickly as possible.

Under the current regime, criminals who are currently serving a sentence of less than two years are eligible to file an appeal to the immigration appeal division. The CPA entirely supports the measures contained within this bill to reduce that time to sentences of less than six months. We also support the new measures that would make it more difficult for criminals,who have been sentenced outside of Canada to access the immigration appeal division.

These are not my words, but the words of the president of the Canadian Police Association. We are talking about police officers who are in the streets every day, who put their lives on the line to protect and support us, who have real life experience and they support Bill C-43.

Mr. Stamatakis then proceeded to tell us a story, which cannot be repeated enough, of the tragic death of Todd Baylis. Mr. Stamatakis told the story in a way that bears repeating. He said:

On the night of June 16, 1994, Toronto Police Service Constables Todd Baylis and Mike Leone were on foot patrol in a public housing complex on Trethewey Drive in west Toronto when they encountered Jamaican-born Clinton Gayle. Gayle was a 26-year-old veteran drug trafficker who had with him a fully loaded nine millimetre handgun and pockets filled with bags of crack cocaine. Clinton Gayle struck Constable Baylis and attempted to flee the scene. He was caught by the two young Toronto officers and a gun fight erupted. Tragically, Constable Baylis was shot in the head and killed in the line of duty, after only four years' service, leaving behind family, friends, and colleagues who continue to honour his sacrifice.

Unfortunately, this is one of the very real dangers that face our police personnel every day. What makes this case so particularly tragic and why I am here before you today is that this case was entirely preventable, if only the provisions within Bill C-43 were in effect then.

Clinton Gayle had been under a deportation order because of a number of criminal convictions he had on his record for various serious issues such as drugs, weapons, and assault. Despite these convictions, Clinton Gayle had used his time in prison to appeal his deportation order. At the conclusion of his sentence in 1992, he was allowed to go free by an immigration department official after posting a meagre $2,000 bail.

We now know that between 1990 and 1996, the government had made a number of efforts to deport Mr. Gayle, efforts that ultimately proved to be unsuccessful, and that red tape and abuse of the system by a known criminal is what led to the tragic murder of one of our colleagues, Constable Baylis, as well as serious injuries to his partner, Constable Leone.

Todd Baylis' story deserves repeating because it is important that we remember the consequences of having a broken system that puts criminals ahead of victims and law-abiding Canadians, that allows endless appeals for dangerous foreign criminals so they can remain in Canada and use that time to commit more crimes and create more unfortunate victims.

The most important part of Mr. Stamatakis' testimony is that he debunked the ridiculous claim made constantly by the NDP members and Liberals that criminals who has received a sentence of at least six months had not committed crimes that should be considered serious. For example, someone found growing six marijuana plants for the purpose of trafficking is not a serious criminal. This is what the president of the Police Association had to say:

I think that in this country anybody who receives a custodial sentence of six months would have had to commit a serious crime.

As a front line officer, whether you're talking about a criminal act where innocent citizens in our country are being victimized by violence or other activities like that, or about a white-collar crime, where you have people who are losing life savings and having their entire lives destroyed, where there is a custodial sentence of a duration of six months, I think somebody has committed a serious crime, and I think 800 is too many....Drug trafficking is drug trafficking. We've had police officers who've been either seriously injured or killed on duty or in the line of duty by people who aren't even involved in criminal activity at the time.

I could not agree more with the Canadian Police Association.

What is especially telling, though, is that the NDP members did not ask the representative from the Police Association a single question, not a single one.

Here is a respected senior member of the police force whose organization represents over 50,000 front-line enforcement personnel from across Canada, serving in over 160 difference police services, including police officers from federal, provincial, municipal and first nations police organizations, with probably more expertise on the bill and the issues surrounding it than any other stakeholder the committee hears, yet the NDP members did not ask a single question.

It shows yet again that unfortunately the NDP will not listen to Canadians, will not listen to the experts and will continue to put the rights of criminals ahead of victims and of law abiding Canadians.

I urge the NDP members and the Liberals today to listen to organizations like the Canadian Police Association and stop using amendments to try to prevent the bill from becoming law. I implore the opposition to work with our Conservative government to ensure the speedy passage of the bill.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the example of the member is fundamentally flawed. Let me share with him an email that I received and summarily presented before the committee. It makes reference to his case. It makes reference to what the minister had said earlier during the day on a CBC Morning interview, and that was what ultimately led to this email. It states:

Referring to the minister, he specifically cites the cases of Clinton Gayle, 1991 to 1994, and the two B.C. street racers, that would be Bhalru and Khosa, and claimed that these were both cases where the foreigners appealed deportation orders and committed further crimes in the interim. The minister is wrong. Gayle did appeal the deportation order, yes, but lost. The Immigration Department then lost his file and then failed to get the travel document. Gayle was not removed and he subsequently killed Officer Baylis. The department, not the appeal division, was sued by the police force for their negligence, and the department settled the suit. The reason Gayle remained in Canada was because of the department. It was not the appeal division.

Maybe the member would want to comment on that?

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member says everybody is seriously flawed when he asks a question. What is not seriously flawed that Clinton Gayle killed a police officer, and that is the bottom line.

I can cite other cases. Jackie Tran from Vietnam was charged with assault with a weapon, drug trafficking, drug possession, failure to comply with court orders, sentences ranging from $100 fine to two years less a day of imprisonment. Did he appeal? Absolutely. The removal order was given in April 2004 and he was finally removed in March 2010, nearly six years of delay while this guy was on the streets committing further crimes against innocent Canadians.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to hear the very pointed angle from my colleague, who is also a member of the citizenship and immigration committee and knows that from witness after expert after lawyer after refugee expert, we heard how the bill was not appropriate, that the bill was possibly unconstitutional, that the bill could put so much extra power in the hands of the minister, one person, rather than a tribunal or board.

What does my hon. colleague have to say about the fact that the bill would concentrate an excessive amount of power in the hands of one minister within the cabinet?